Through the Lens

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THE EYE OF

BETHANY GALLEY

AGAINST THE TIDE The news tells us that Brazil, most importantly Rio de Janeiro, is a dangerous place. Brazilian soldiers ‘shot up family’s car’. Two held over Brazil politician’s murder. Protests held across Brazil after death of black teenager in Rio de Janeiro. In the meantime, the country has just elected the “Trump of the Tropics” as president, schools are being cancelled due to shootouts and Brazil as a whole is seen to be going down a far-right path of no return. Every morning we wake to the news that Brazil’s political situation is getting worse, that an innocent black teen has been killed as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that favelas, above all, are the common denominator. I pinch myself sometimes and think, I need to hear a different story. I need to believe that hiding behind this bad, there is some good.

There is still some hope for Brazil, people just need to find it.

Favelas are places that have become synonymous for violence in Rio de Janeiro. Staying in Brazil’s favelas, my morning alarm was the sound of gun shots, but people, including myself, don’t bat an eyelid. It is a way of life over there. It is what it is. What are we becoming? The lifeless body of a man lies on the main street of the favela, yet not a soul shows concern. Life very quickly goes back to the way it was before. This is such a regular occurrence that people don’t have the time to dwell on it. In Brazil, people kill in the name of God, they kill in the name of peace, they kill in the name of nothing, because nothing matters anymore. Most of the time, they kill for the sake of killing. Every day waking up in Brazil begins with a simple wish: that this shooting and killing will end as soon as possible. Favelas are not bad places, there are just a minority of people who live within them who are bad people.

Every day, 1.5 million of Rio’s residents wake up in a favela – that’s over 20% of the city’s population. When I first visited Rio in 2016, I was based in Rocinha – the largest favela in South America – and during my time here, I volunteered at a school, providing extra lessons to children who only got to attend school for

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around 4 hours a day. It was this encounter that really inspired me to begin this project. In each favela across Rio, there are hundreds if not thousands of kids who know what is going on but never get a chance to put across their view of the situation in the city. This March, I headed back to Rio where I ran a photography workshop at Casa Amarela. Casa Amarela is a cultural and artistic centre situated in Morro da Providência, Rio’s oldest favela.

Here, I distributed 25 disposable cameras to the children of the project, instructing them to take pictures of their community, their friends, their family and what they think represents the favela. I wanted these photographs to provide transparency of the good and the bad that goes on, using photography as a weapon to fight against people’s stereotypes of favelas.

I would be sugar-coating the situation if I was to say drug cartels don’t still have a major influence in a lot of Rio’s favelas. They are still there, and I don’t think any kind of force will get them to move away from these communities. They are their homes and have been like this for many years. However, I wanted to give this issue a fresh twist. One that would break away from these expected crime and sob stories so often heard in the favelas. By empowering the children at the project and giving them a way to show their lives in the favela, I discovered a way for the rest of the world to see the favelas in a different light. Seeing them through the eyes of the children living in them. Seeing them through the lens.

This is a visual account of daily life in the favela through the eyes of its youngest residents. It is time for the children to tell their story.

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nder n. //

The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, worries, triumphs and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

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27/ 03/ 2019 Text: Bethany Galley Photography: Bethany Galley

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efore the French artist and photographer, JR, and Brazilian photographer, Maurício Hora - who was born and raised in Morro da Providência established Casa Amarela there were no cultural facilities or social counselling structure in this specific favela. JR first visited the favela in August 2008 and promised to return the following April to open the centre. This meant setting up an on-site team, buying a house, and going through all the administrative and legal formalities.

Eight months wasn’t a lot of time to do this in however, JR knew he had to give back to this community.

The house that JR ended up buying was a shell, four walls and no different to any other house in the favela. Now however, it is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

I still remember the moment I first saw Casa Amarela with my own eyes.

It was the afternoon of March 27, 2019.

I went up a long flight of stairs, passing locals and military police on my way. Morro da Providência is unlike any other favela that I have been to. With its cobbled streets and narrow alleyways, there is a sense of quaintness to it, it feels homely. Welcoming. Unique.

Casa Amarela sits at the top of Morro da Providência, instantly recognisable by its bright yellow design and the crescent moon which extends from its roof. From the start I could tell that Casa Amarela was the hub of the favela, a place where people were coming and going constantly.

It was a meeting place, a place where adults could chat and children could play.

However, most importantly, it was a place where the children of the favela felt safe.

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10 The children at Casa Amarela played a crucial role in the success of this project. Like children everywhere, they were fascinated by images.

Disposable cameras aren’t widely available in Brazil, so it was a new learning experience for them. I started my workshop by teaching the children how to use the cameras, explaining that unlike digital cameras, they could only take 27 pictures on these. They understood that they had to think about what they were taking a picture of.

What meaning and relevance would that picture have to their lives in the favela? How could they capture their lives in 27 pictures? Although Morro da Providência is a small favela, I was amazed that not one picture captured, was a duplicate of another. The children had thought long and hard on how they wanted people to perceive their lives and how they wanted to communicate these with the outside world.

This is a visual account of these children’s lives in the favela. This is a piece of art to be shared with those who want to see the reality.

There may be shooting, there may be violence but there are also happy kids and a community grateful for the support that they are getting from Casa Amarela.

These pictures are real, this is the children’s lives from behind the lens.

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THE MAKING OF

THE MAKING OF

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27/ Life’s Not All That Bad Text: Bethany Galley Photography: The Children of Casa Amarela

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or most, visiting a favela would be unthinkable, so growing up in one would be unimagineable. However, for these children, it is just their life. They are happy with it because they know no different.

Although there are shootings, there are drugs and there is violence, there is also a unique sense of community in Morro da Providência - people look

after each other no matter what. Casa Amarela has had a huge influence on this, bringing people from all walks of life into the centre to benefit the lives of the favela’s residents.

The children in Morro da Providência, just like any other favela, are growing up in a society that will continue to challenge them throughout their entire lives. Favelas aren’t going to change overnight and

the residents, including the children, know that. It is going to take a lot of small actions to make a big difference.

However, it is already seen that workshops ran at the centre are having a profound impact on the children who attend. Casa Amarela believes that different types of art can help the children to evolve and choose the right way of living. Allowing them to grow into the adults that they really want to be.

With over 20 children

attending the centre each day, we have to remember that it is not compulsory for these children to attend at all. They are there because they want to be there. They want to learn and most of all, they want to have a future.

Although all children who attended my workshop are unique in their own different ways, they all seemed to share a similarity, particularity in their character.

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS

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There is a sense of maturity to them all, no matter how young they may be. All children at the centre were extremely open to being photographed and using the cameras, allowing me to gain an insight into all of their perspectives on the favela. They all possessed maturity and also the lack of innocence which would be common in other children their age. All the children took to me easily, which I cannot be more grateful

for. They opened up to me and they were keen to let me have an insight into the reality of their lives.

At Casa Amarela, the moon is a huge symbol. The moon which is actually a bedroom for artists who teach at Casa Amarela - extends from the centre’s roof, making it visible from all corners of the favela. The idea of the moon is a metaphor which symbolises the huge impact that Casa Amarela is having

on the favela’s residents. It symbolises the fact that the centre can take the adults and children who attend to the moon, in the sense of achieving their goals in life and showing that there are no boundaries to what can be achieved. By developing their creativity, they turn their dreams into reality.

With the help of Casa Amarela, life in Morro da ProvidĂŞncia is changing for the better, these

photographs show me that.

The children taking part in my project understood the importance of letting the outside world in to see the reality of their lives, showing people that everything is not as it seems. This project was not just about educating but also allowing the children to express themselves and develop their photography skills.

Just like the favela, the photographs taken are not perfect. Some have blurs,

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some have fingers blocking the view, some are too dark to even be seen but they all capture something.

They capture the essence of this project. They capture their lives. They capture what the news seems to forget. They capture the best parts about the favela.

The people living within it.

THE MAKING OF

THE MAKING OF

Long Walk to Freedom Text: Bethany Galley Photography: The Children of Casa Amarela

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rom the beginning, this project was all about showing the reality of growing up in a favela. This is a controversial subject which comes with both good and bad points to it.

Am I supposed to show what the viewers want to see or what I want to express? Or rather, what the media wants to see?

To this day, there is still very much a barrier between the favelas and the rest of Rio de Janeiro.

There is a long way to go until these barriers are lifted and although I am unsure if Rio will ever become a fully integrated city, I really hope it does for the children of this favela.

The media is a big problem in this fight for integration.

Until people start to hear the good side of the goings on in favelas, people will still sterotype them as places ran by the drug cartels that have no future.

Children letting the outside world into their lives is a small step into conquering this problem. Art is having a profound effect on the minds of these young people, allowing them to express themselves in a way that wasn’t possible before. I am hopeful that by displaying these pictures, little by little, people will begin to see another side to Rio’s favelas. Some of Rio’s most welcoming places are the favelas and people need to begin to see and understand this. These barriers need to be lifted so all children in Rio are given equal opportunities in life

32 as without Casa Amarela, I am unsure how much the children of Morro da ProvidĂŞncia would be able to express themselves.

Although, yes, there is still a long walk to freedom within the favela, Casa Amarela gives hope.

It gives hope that someday, these children will be able to break down the barriers that they face today.

Someday they will reach the moon, turning their dreams into reality.

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Can Art Change the World?

Text: Bethany Galley Photography: Bethany Galley

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he Disposable Camera Project has shown myself along with a lot of other people that what we thought was impossible, was possible and even easy.

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meant to be. As long as they go after their dreams and keep a focused mind, life in the favela will get easier. Stereotypes will change. Barriers will be broken down one by one.

For this project, I didn’t push the limit. I just went further than anyone had thought to go before. When you go in to an ever developing society, children are the pillars of their communities.

They are the ones that have the chance to change their communities for the better.

The children in Rio’s favelas are hungry for culture. They need culture to advance and develop in their lives.

In some ways, art can change the world. As Casa Amarela’s founder, JR, said “Art is not supposed to change the world, to change practical things, but to change perceptions. Art can change the way we see the world.”

When I first went out to Rio de Janeiro, I was not interested in photographing the violence and the weapons. We already see that too much of that in the media. I wanted to show the incredible life and the energy of the favelas.

The people within them, the children who are the shining beacons of their communities.

This project wasn’t about showing the negatives but showing the positives.

Letting people see what really goes on. Giving the children a sense of belonging, the favela is their place, it is where they’re

After my project, life very quickly went back to normal in the favela. It always does.

This one project alone won’t change the favela.

One hundred projects standing together probably wouldn’t change the favela.

However, if this changes one person’s perception on the favela and makes them see the potential that these children have, that’s good enough for me.

THANK YOU Curating this project was not the simpliest of tasks and being 6000 miles away didn’t help this. It took multiple emails, texts, and calls to plan everything out the way that I wanted it to be.

However, in the end, I am not really sure that I needed a plan at all.

Kids will be kids and sometimes they had their own plan. But I am so happy that it all worked out in the end.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without Casa Amarela and the number of people associated with it. I would like to start off by thanking Nina Soutoul for her help with planning and organising my workshop at such short notice. You are a real inspiration to me and so many others, your love and passion for Casa Amarela shines through in your personality and the children are so lucky to have your help and guidance.

Thanks to Douglas Oliveira ‘Dobby’ for documenting my workshop and guiding me around the favela. Without your help who knows how many times I would have gotten lost.

Thanks to all of my friends, disposable cameras for the you all the good that does project truly wouldn’t have

family and tutors for donating so many project. I hope this project has shown goes on in the favelas of Brazil, this been able to happen without you all.

The biggest thank you goes to all of my photographers from Casa Amarela.

Thanks for letting me into your lives and allowing for the outside world to see the reality of living in a favela. There are no boundaries to what you all can achieve so keep on reaching for that moon.

Obrigada Brasil

THIS STARTS RIGHT NOW “I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world, INSIDE OUT.” JR